Saturday, December 15, 2012

Rumble doesn't actually appear in the Transformers Prime cartoon (yet?) but he's already got a toy from the line. I'm generally a fan of the subset of Transformers that had cassette alt-modes back in the 80s, so this is a toy right up my alley. Interestingly, this Rumble is blue. There is a long history of controversy over whether Rumble should be blue or red. In the comics and the original toys, he was red. In the cartoon he was blue. I grew up with the cartoon, but never read the comics, so for me Rumble is blue.

For the most part, I dig the bot mode. It's short and kind of wide. The only problem I have is that the roof of the car just sort of sits there on his shoulders. It's not the worst, but it's not the greatest. He includes the piledriver weapons, so he can still make earthquakes. If you don't want them on his hands, they can plug into the back of his shoulders as well. For whatever reason, his chest looks like a face. Sure, why not?

Because kids these days don't know what a cassette tape is, Rumble's altmode has been modernized. It seems like whenever a Transformer had a weird altmode in the 80s gets a modern version, it ends up as a car. I suppose that's fair enough, as a car would be a useful altmode. So Rumble turns into a little blue car. The piledrivers plug into the sides and look like rocket boosters. Almost all the paint apps are for the bot mode, so the car's color does look a bit flat.

4 comments:

I have had this figure in my hands on several visits to stores, but I always end up putting him back. It's weird because I've heard nothing but good things about it, I just can't seem to get into him. Are you into Repeo Labels? They have a really nice set for him that even homages his cassette tape origins. You should check it out!